


Had to be You

by tealuvhonor



Category: BioShock
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort/Angst, Drug Abuse, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Suchong pumped Jack fulla sass, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 07:31:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12476492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tealuvhonor/pseuds/tealuvhonor
Summary: And like the sea, he pulled him back down once more.A little AU where Jack opens his mouth and sides with Fontaine instead of Tenenbaum.





	Had to be You

**Author's Note:**

> Interesting fact: this fic was started in 2014, abandoned, and brought back to life by sheer force of love for Bioshock! (FYI, it's Burial at Sea compliant)

Traces of ADAM streaked the child's face, matted ponytail swaying in the stale, dead air that Arcadia granted. Ironic, given its original purpose. She slumped to her knees in front of a body- a thin, lanky one ridden with shotgun wounds that seeped onto the floor around him like a crimson halo, and her bare feet met the filth when she dropped to her hands and knees at his side. The girl didn't flinch. 

Nearby, Rapture's latest resident stood passive in the shadows, observing the Little Sister and her protector from afar. Her eyes, glowing with the drug induced haze, paid no attention to him, thankfully keeping the Rosie at bay for the time being. He was in no mood to take a rivet gun to the face. 

"An angel!," the little girl fussed dreamily, running her pale fingers, miraculously unscathed, over the base of a syringe. One could only speculate exactly what delusions clouded a gatherer’s vision. 

I’ll have what she’s having, the man mused to himself earlier on, an influx of cold wracking his sizable form when he’d realized exactly how fucked up this whole situation was, and even more daunting, that it was what passed for normalcy fathoms below. At times, he tried to envision what Andrew Ryan’s metropolis looked like in its earlier years, all glistening chandeliers and promises of success, and oh, how the mighty have fallen. 

In his opinion, the more Big Daddies in Rapture, the better. Those kids might not be...normal, but they didn't deserve to be stalked and harvested for a quick high. 

He wanted to protect them, he really did. But he also couldn't bear to show them where they were, what they were actually being forced to do. Pigtail twirling in the air, she looked...content. 

Suddenly there wasn’t remotely enough booze in Rapture. 

Jack gnawed at his lip when the needle met its destination, fluid pooling at the base. From his perspective, the child was drawing from a well of vitality. His first few hours kicking back plasmids were motivated solely by survival, but it was starting to look like his future was right in front of him, holding a gun to his temple. 

He didn't know much about how he was...programmed. And for his own sake and sanity, he didn't want to know. Although, he had to wonder if his tolerance for ADAM was the same as any other poor bastard's. Maybe he'd ask. No. No he wouldn't. Was he paranoid? 

Must run in the family, he thought bemusedly. 

But oh, how his lungs burned with need when there was no quick fix on hand. He tore his eyes from the Little Sister, before they started to glaze over. 

Not fond of the revolting desire that tugged at his gut he'd began to feel at the sight of ADAM, Jack Ryan- not Wynand, he had to correct himself, turned his back and started through the tunnel that linked the winery to the farmer's market, toting his wrench as always. There was a pistol often resting on his hip, but he found solace in twirling the mechanism to keep his hands busy. The pungent odor of rotting fruit began to assault his senses and mingled with fresh blood, resulting in a nauseating cocktail of decay that caused him to scrunch up his nose. 

As it were, the splicer being drained was a bitch to kill, considering he'd been hopped up on Insect Swarm at the time and pumped with EVE out the ass. Jack was still plucking stingers out of his neck.

This new- scratch that, more severe obstacle, shouldn't be surprising, though. Andrew Ryan lay dead, the security system left impaired in the process. One could only imagine the complete bedlam to be encountered when Gatherer's Gardens were left unattended like this. It was only a matter of time, anyway. 

Whatever, he was used to being attacked on sight.

Rapture was somewhere between cesspool and death trap regardless, but Jack didn't even want to think about how long it had gone without maintenance. Weeks? Months? Arcadia was one of the only places where saltwater wasn't spurting forth from cracks in the walls, but that was no real comfort as the tunnels practically groaned beneath his feet. Granted, Jack was a pretty big guy. That wouldn't keep him from having a minor stroke whenever he saw a loose screw on the floor, though. 

He sneered wordlessly at the grime collecting on his shoes. His trousers were ripped and discolored toward the cuff, unchanged since his arrival. He didn't exactly have the time or luxury to go shopping at Fort Frolic, but found himself blending in more and more with the splicer population. 

The mere thought was shoved to the back of his subconscious. 

Tied together with bloody gashes soaked up by the wool of his sweater, he looked like hell. The reason he was even there rung dead in his conscience and drifted even further when he slid into a sitting position against the glass tunnel, warped view of the gleaming sea posing as a welcome distraction, cold and pitiless, but weaved with unmistakable intrigue. The depths rippled, distorted by the barrier between them, and he found himself syncing his inhales and exhales to those fluid movements. It was one of the few things he liked to do to remind himself that he was alive.

It was hard not to acknowledge the ocean’s resemblance to a familiar pair of eyes Jack had seen for the first time not long ago. The universe did have a sense of humor, it seemed. 

The second he'd come face to face with Fontaine, a rendezvous in the confines of his base of operations, Jack was forced to avert his hazel eyes, not on command, but to keep from flushing like mad. They were nearly the same height. Jet black fringe over impossibly vivid blue eyes, a sinfully rugged worker's build, and damn it all, it would be so much easier to hate his guts if he looked like the conniving snake Jack saw in old pictures around the city. Instead, the man was a spitting image of those stupid fucking posters. Voice of the people. 

He didn't see a liar, he saw Atlas. 

The perversion of it all made him nauseous in hindsight, so he lit a cigarette via Incinerate and fixated himself on the smoke curling from his lips. It spiraled upwards, dissipating into nothing. Truthfully, it was the least of his shitty habits. Siding with the man who got him into this mess was questionable at the very least, but he found himself grateful, for some reason that wasn't nearly as simple as loyalty. 

Maybe he would have "saved" more Little Sisters, as the woman had put it, if he wasn't so afraid of letting sickness wash over him and doing the opposite. He almost pitied the doctor, the way she talked about those girls. But he had no such mercy to offer, and if Jack was good at anything, it was taking orders. 

__________________________________________________________________ 

 

“You’ve been a sport- but you know what they say, never mix business with friendship” 

Jack was positive that wasn’t the correct wording.

It was then that he felt the blood under his fingernails with distinction. Not because of some inner enlightenment that could only come about from having your mind fucked inside out and beating someone to death with a golf club. No, it was because the blood gushing from the otherwise spotless tan suit was his own. The entrepreneur, the founder, the tyrant. Andrew Ryan was dead. Bleeding out on the carpet mere feet from where Jack stood. Perhaps he was expected to be slack-jawed, completely taken aback by the reveal of his faceless guide, overly theatrical, by the way. 

Try as he might, Jack couldn't bring himself to feel anything. None of this was tangible in the least. Plus, he wouldn't grant this bastard the satisfaction. He just needed to think, and fast.

"I'll go out on a limb here and figure we're not gonna have that touching reunion, then. Shame, really," Jack chimed in, tone low and grated due to the lump in his throat. Thankfully, his desperation wasn't evident in his speaking voice. Was it? 

The line went silent for a moment, but the radio static persisted. It was the sound that used to calm his nerves, but now it just grated on them. "Heh, so you aren't mute after all. I was worried the slant didn't give me my money's worth," the voice on the other side answered. 

Yeah, it was almost as if he was a real person with free will. Shocking. 

It might've been Jack's imagination, but the smugness in the conman's voice, a different accent entirely (New York, perhaps?), was almost overshadowed by apprehension. 

"So I'm sure you'd want to make the most out of it- uh...me," Jack said, maybe a bit too eager to save his own skin. There was a time for snark, and a time to swallow what was left of his pride. The whirring of multiple security bots approaching from behind wasn't exactly easing his mind, either. 

"And that I did," and the smugness was back, "Sorry for cutting this short, kid, but-" 

"I suppose you're going to escape this place alone, then. That, or with the aid of your numerous allies?" Silence. 

Jack's fists clenched until his knuckles were white, and he realized he was holding his breath. Still no answer. He gazed up at the monitor bearing the Futuristics logo, screen ridden with computer static but still recognizable. It was no secret who ran this city from the sidelines. He understood that now, among other things. And Jack was an abomination, born of ADAM and malevolence, a pawn to ensure a conman’s victory. 

‘Look around,’ he was dying to growl back into the radio, ‘Look at your kingdom. I hope it was worth it.’ 

Damn it all. Maybe he was better off dead. He just wasn’t made for normality; the blood would never leave his fingernails. Before he could even begin his own pity party, the radio let out a harsh dissonance. 

"Are you suggesting what I think you are? I have all the ADAM in this joint to myself-" 

Jack interrupted,"The dependance is just lovely, take it from me, but not everyone can be immune to the side effects...," he was truly on a roll. It was a wonder his smart ass hadn't been shot dead by now, "Not to mention your ride to the shore. You do have a plan, right? The closest authorities would detain you on sight. A genetically superior human being capable of what plasmids can do...you’d be the foreign government’s new pet." 

He heard Fontaine clear his throat. Jack actually had no idea if that would happen, but the good doctor made him a fantastic bullshitter. 

"And how can I be so sure you won't go runnin' to Tenenbaum, if I keep you alive?" 

"It seems you have me collared just fine already," his voice broke toward the end, but he maintained his demeanor sans-hysteria. For now. 

"Kid, if you make me regret this...." 

"I won't! I swear," if his existence wasn't already pitiful, pleading for it was a new low. Jack had reached rock bottom. Literally.

"I'm sending a 'sphere your way. Meet me at Point Prometheus. Don't try anything, either. You know these security cameras ain't just for decoration." While he sprinted to the bathysphere with new orders fresh in his mind, those words still clung to his memory, repeated over and over. How fitting. 

A man chooses. A slave obeys. And he just chose for the very first time. 

“Would ya kindly avoid any detours as well?”

__________________________________________________________________ 

Jack brought his knees to his chest, feeling tense as he usually did when separating real memories from the artificial. The cigarette was reduced to ashes under his heel. 

When Ryan sent the splicers running wild after the chaos in Hephaestus, not a soul could reach one of the bathyspheres to the surface or even attempt to on their own without being jumped by an entire gang of them. Maybe Jack’s conditioning could have pulled through, but Fontaine was ambitious, not moronic enough to throw his best chance of survival to the dogs. So they weren’t outnumbered, just...compromised.

Why should he leave, anyways? When he closed his eyes, faced the reality that everything he thought he lived for was a sham, there was nothing there for him beyond Rapture. Beyond him. A cruel follow up to his morbid train of thought, the radio at Jack's hip crackled to life. 

"The hell's the matter, kid? You just slept that exhaustion off a few hours ago. I should know, your arm was on the button an' I heard you snoring," Fontaine's inquiry was laced with amusement, but still dragged a sigh out of him as he aligned his back to the glass. Jack would never find familiarity in that damned voice again. In his mind, they were still two separate entities. A friend and a slave driver. 

"I was just thinking, is all," he answered dutifully, instead of telling him to shove it, because they had an agreement, and 'business partners didn't hold out on each other'. Of course that meant fuck-all, considering whose mouth it was coming from, but sounded significantly better than another choice phrase. 

Jack's comprehension of the three words was fuzzy at most. He vaguely remembered the first few syllables registering in his brain before fizzling along with his free will, for a time, being rendered a passenger in his own body. Sometimes he prayed it would last longer so he could forget, accept indifference, be done with it all; every blood curdling scream he wrenched from the chest of a raving addict, every time Tenenbaum had intercepted the short wave and told him he could change and he was better than this- but he'd finally understood who he was, what he was manufactured to do.

After playing her role in his unholy mutation, she didn't have the right. 

Anyway, Jack was loosely promised that he wouldn't be controlled unless he stepped out of line, the line being more like a tightrope that he walked every moment of his short life. 

"Y'know what really gets me thinking? A full stomach, which is why I sent you over there in the first place." The retort made him grimace, because the conman was right, as usual. Expired non-canned goods in Apollo Square were hardly up for discussion, and it was only a matter of time before there weren't any more full vending machines to plunder.

"You must not eat a lot, then," Jack mumbled, looking down at the floor. He snapped absentmindedly, watching flames dance on his fingertips as Fontaine's laughter caused the radio to sputter.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, kid." 

He couldn't admit it to himself, but deep down, Jack knew the hunger he felt was deep and insatiable, and couldn't be distracted by a bag of chips. Before he knew it, there was another smoke between his teeth, and...he was out of EVE. Fuck. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Fuck," he growled through his teeth, maybe a little too loud. Continuing to snap his fingers like a madman wasn't helping. 

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?," that teasing intonation was back again, no surprise there. 

Despite the cold, stale air, Jack realized he was sweating. When did it happen? How could he let it happen? He tried to retrace his steps mentally, picking apart every event since stepping out of the bathysphere in Arcadia. There was no way he went through 4 injections that fast.

Damn, it's hot in here. 

And now he's aware of his own breathing. Great. He rolled his sleeves up so that they bunched at the elbow, completely oblivious to whatever Fontaine was babbling about. God, that man loved to talk, and oh, Jesus Christ. The younger man’s entire forearm was splotched a deep, sickly violet color that tainted his veins and only grew more vile looking toward the area he plunged the hypos into. That's when the severity of it all came crashing down on him at once. 

Jack gasped, unable to do anything but stare at himself until revulsion overcame him and he thumped his head backward against the glass, squeezing his eyes shut and becoming increasingly panicked with every inhale and exhale that wracked his body. 

He was a sitting duck in this position, but that wasn't number one on his list of personal issues at the moment. 

"HEY! You deaf?," Fontaine was yelling at him, but his voice was fading in and out. 

"I...I'm sorry. I- uh..," the constriction in Jack’s chest was unbearably evident, and he could barely rasp out an answer. Perhaps the worst of it was the fact he was being scrutinized- watched from those cameras, prying with red eyes that captured his every move. Jack was shaking now, burying his head in his knees. The tile beneath him was damp. He could barely even fathom how absolutely helpless he looked, curled up against the wall in panic like a child fearing the dark.

This wouldn't be allowed. Fontaine was a lot of things but he definitely wasn't a babysitter. He'd be controlled for sure. And he deserved it. There's no profit in something that's broken. 

But was he really losing it, or was he simply being irrational? It felt like both. He wasn't around early enough to see the early stages of withdrawal in other poor souls, most of which were too far gone to remember their own names. He yanked the sweater sleeve back down to escape the sight of himself.

His arm. All those needles. All that ADAM…

"Listen to me." 

But still, he wanted to believe it would be okay, he wanted it so desperately. He wanted to shut his eyes and wake up to sunlight filtering through a window and the chatter of a family that cared about him. That wasn't real. Rapture was real, and nobody was looking out for Jack but himself. 

Possibly. 

His vision continued to swim in panic. He can't do this. He can't be here, it’s too much. Moments passed like some great, thick substance he was submerged in. 

Turns out, it only takes one irony-soaked phrase to snap him out of it. The sound was so desperately cruel, yet comforting at the same time 

“Calm down, boyo.”


End file.
